Thread: help formating old floppies

i have an whole bunch of old floppy discs with RAW format on them and i want to format them to ntfs or fat but windows wont for some reason so i am venturing to create my own formating program what i need to know is how to write to specific memory and how to put the ntfs or fat format on these floppies. thank you in advanced

It seems you are wanting to a lot of OS-centered programming. You can only format the disk if you know how to put the FAT file system on the disk. NTFS AFAIK will not work on floppies.

how do you put FAT format on a floppy i checked wotsit.com but it had nothing on FAT do you know any other places that would tell me how

Originally Posted by kwm32

how do you put FAT format on a floppy i checked wotsit.com but it had nothing on FAT do you know any other places that would tell me how

There is probably a reason that Windows can't format your floppies. Are they standard 31/2" 1.44MB disks?

Anyway, probably the easiest way to do this would be to copy the raw contents of an existing, just formatted, floppy to a file. Then copy that file to the disk that you want to format.

You will end up with more than one disk with the same volume id but I don't think that will be a problem. If it works you can always reformat them with Windows.

Code:

// Note: You may need admin priviliges to get raw access to A:

hDrive = CreateFile(TEXT("\\.\A:"),GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_FLAG_WRITE_THROUGH, NULL);

ReadFile(hDrive, ...); // into buffer
WriteFile(hFile, ...); // from buffer

You would then reverse that to write the file to the floppy to be formatted.

OK, I was bored. You don't need admin priviliges. I could only test on a formatted floppy(where it worked without a hitch) as I don't have an unformatted one available. However, assuming the disk is viable, it should work.

If you really want info on the FAT format check http://www.pjrc.com/tech/8051/ide/fat32.html. Note that floppy disks are FAT12.

Code:

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>

/* NOTE: This program is for NT/2000/XP only. */

VOID WinError(LPCTSTR szMsg)
{
	_tprintf(_T("%s\nError Code: %d\n"), szMsg, GetLastError());
	exit(GetLastError());
}


BOOL DoesFileExist(LPCTSTR szFile)
{
	return (GetFileAttributes(szFile) != INVALID_FILE_ATTRIBUTES);
}


INT CreateImageFromFloppy(LPCTSTR szFile)
{
	HANDLE hDrive, hFile;
	BOOL   bRet;
	DWORD  dwRead, dwWritten;
	BYTE   buf[16384];

	SetLastError(ERROR_SUCCESS);

	hDrive = CreateFile(TEXT("\\\\.\\A:"), GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
	                    NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_FLAG_WRITE_THROUGH, NULL);

	if (hDrive != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
	{
		hFile = CreateFile(szFile, GENERIC_WRITE, 0,
		                   NULL, CREATE_ALWAYS, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);

		if (hFile != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
		{
			do
			{
				bRet = ReadFile(hDrive, buf, sizeof(buf), &dwRead, NULL);

				if (!bRet)
				{
					WinError(TEXT("Failed while reading from disk."));
					break;
				}

				bRet = WriteFile(hFile, buf, dwRead, &dwWritten, NULL);

				if (!bRet)
				{
					WinError(TEXT("Failed while writing to image file."));
					break;
				}

			} while (dwRead != 0);

			CloseHandle(hFile);
		}
		else
		{
			WinError(TEXT("Failed to open image file."));
		}

		CloseHandle(hDrive);
	}
	else
	{
		WinError(TEXT("Failed to open floppy drive."));
	}

	return GetLastError();
}


INT CreateFloppyFromImage(LPCTSTR szFile)
{
	HANDLE hDrive, hFile;
	BOOL   bRet;
	DWORD  dwRead, dwWritten;
	BYTE   buf[16384];

	SetLastError(ERROR_SUCCESS);

	hDrive = CreateFile(TEXT("\\\\.\\A:"), GENERIC_WRITE, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
	                    NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_FLAG_WRITE_THROUGH, NULL);

	if (hDrive != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
	{
		hFile = CreateFile(szFile, GENERIC_READ, 0,
		                   NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);

		if (hFile != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
		{
			do
			{
				bRet = ReadFile(hFile, buf, sizeof(buf), &dwRead, NULL);

				if (!bRet)
				{
					WinError(TEXT("Failed while reading from image file."));
					break;
				}

				bRet = WriteFile(hDrive, buf, dwRead, &dwWritten, NULL);

				if (!bRet)
				{
					WinError(TEXT("Failed while writing to disk."));
					break;
				}

			} while (dwRead != 0);

			CloseHandle(hFile);
		}
		else
		{
			WinError(TEXT("Failed to open image file."));
		}

		CloseHandle(hDrive);
	}
	else
	{
		WinError(TEXT("Failed to open floppy drive."));
	}

	return GetLastError();
}


int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
	if (!DoesFileExist(TEXT("floppy.img")))
	{
		printf("Please insert source floppy and press ENTER...\n");
		getchar();

		CreateImageFromFloppy(TEXT("floppy.img"));
	}

	printf("Please insert target floppy and press ENTER...\n");
	getchar();

	CreateFloppyFromImage(TEXT("floppy.img"));

	printf("Press ENTER to continue...\n");
	getchar();
	return 0;
}

P.S What has this got to do with networking anyway?

This is also a "device communication" forum.

OK, for completeness I "unformatted" a floppy using this program:

Code:

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>

/* NOTE: This program is NT/2000/XP only. */

VOID WinError(LPCTSTR szMsg)
{
	_tprintf(_T("%s\nError Code: %d\n"), szMsg, GetLastError());
	exit(GetLastError());
}


INT UnformatFloppy(VOID)
{
	HANDLE hDrive;
	BOOL   bRet;
	DWORD  dwWritten;
	BYTE   buf[16384] = { 0 };

	SetLastError(ERROR_SUCCESS);

	hDrive = CreateFile(TEXT("\\\\.\\A:"), GENERIC_WRITE, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
	                    NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_FLAG_WRITE_THROUGH, NULL);

	if (hDrive != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
	{
		do
		{
			bRet = WriteFile(hDrive, buf, sizeof(buf), &dwWritten, NULL);

			if (!bRet)
			{
				WinError(TEXT("Failed while writing to disk."));
				break;
			}
		} while (dwWritten != 0);

		CloseHandle(hDrive);
	}
	else
	{
		WinError(TEXT("Failed to open floppy drive."));
	}

	return GetLastError();
}


int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
	printf("Please insert floppy to unformat and press ENTER...\n");
	getchar();

	UnformatFloppy();

	printf("Press ENTER to continue...\n");
	getchar();
	return 0;
}

and reformatted it with the program I posted above and it worked perfectly.

>>This is also a "device communication" forum.<<

Thanks. I forgot that.

So kwm32, did it work?

(kwm32 has PMs turned off)